The Tribune

TEN young Bahamian change makers from Preston H Albury High School’s Eco Club and Deep Creek Middle School’s Eco Club, in collaboration with The Bahamas Plastic Movement (BPM) and Space to Create, recently joined passionate youth from around the world to address the global plastics pollution crisis.

An estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic pollute the world’s oceans today. The Plastic Ocean Pollution Solution (POPS) Youth Summit, hosted by Algalita, empowers the world’s leaders of tomorrow to address this growing issue. Held in Dana Point, California at the Ocean Institute, energised youth spent three days learning about current scientific research, sharing their experiences addressing plastic pollution, and receiving direct mentorship from professionals to improve upon plans and projects which respond to the plastic pollution problems affecting their home communities and nations.

BPM has proudly supported Algalita’s POPS Youth Summit for three consecutive years by facilitating workshops and various activities.

“Bahamian youth attendance at the summit is very important as it provides exposure to this crucial issue of plastic pollution and energises our students to take action on the Bahamian forefront”, said Kristal Ambrose, founder and director of BPM.

“In my opinion this has been the best year yet. In comparison to other years, there was a new energy that took over the entire summit. The students were more confident, social, comfortable and overall excited and empowered. The ideas presented were great and very inspiring,” Ms Ambrose added.

Designed by young people for young people, the summit is a platform that allows students to take centre stage and demonstrate how young people have the passion and ideas needed to change the world.

“The activities put the students at the centre of the experience which is always best,” said Will Simmons, advisor to the Eco Club and co-director of Space to Create.

Preston H Albury’s Eco Club from Rock Sound, Eleuthera provided the summit with an integrated approach to environmental action combining Bahamian music and arts with the sciences.

“Our presence here and how we brought forward our way of life, our culture, our dance, our language, our singing, just pumped them up more, motivated them,” said Pauliesha Thompson, president of Preston Albury Eco Club.

Destinee Outten, youth ambassador for BPM presented her clothing and accessories to the international crowd. She takes commonly discarded items, like juice pouches, and creates stylish and thought-provoking clothing and accessories.

“Seeing my designs on an international stage, that made me happy,” said Ms Outten. “I was shocked. It really made me realise that it may not be a trend for people now, but in the future it would be realised that maybe this could actually go further than I ever imagined if I just keep on pushing.”

Eco Club students also performed “Refuse It,” an original Bahamian rake ‘n’ scrape song they created to promote plastics awareness.

To learn more about how the Bahamas Plastic Movement is addressing plastics pollution, visit www.bahamasplasticmovement.org and learn about the POPS Youth Summit at http://2015.algalitayouthsummit.org.